Gluten-free bread

You know what's ironic?

In our household, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich is a treat.  Almost a delicacy.

Crazy, no?  But you see, gluten-free bread is expensive, especially gluten-free bread good enough to be yummy with something as simple as peanut butter and jelly.

I hoping, though, that this will quickly change.  My very thoughtful grandma and grandpa gave us a bread maker for Christmas so that we could make gluten-free bread at home, instead of spending so much money on $7 loaves of gluten-free bread.

There are apparently a few machines on the market that have a gluten-free setting, but a bit of quick research showed that it's not necessary.  All you need is a machine with some form of an "Express Bake" setting; in other words, a faster setting that skips at least one kneading session.  Gluten bread needs lots of kneading to help those sticky gluten molecules stretch and expand, but gluten-free bread will break down with too much kneading.

  

  

Turns out that baking gluten free is super, super easy.  We used a sandwich bread mix for the first go 'round, and all we needed to add was milk, eggs and oil.

  

  

  

You add all of the wet ingredients first.  You just dump them into the baking pan.

See that stand mixer?  You don't need it for this!

  

  

Then you just dump the flour mix on top.  You don't even have to beat the eggs!

  

  

 You do need to make a little well for the yeast and make sure that you don't have the yeast touch the wet ingredients.

  

And you do need a handsome baker.  Sorry if you can't find one.  I can't guarantee the outcome without one.

 

  

 Plop it in.

  

The press start and enjoy the smells of baking bread wafting through your house!  The end result was great.  So great, in fact, that the loaf was basically gone in 24 hours.  I didn't even get a photo of it!  This was definitely a hit in our house.  Thanks again, Grandma and Grandpa!

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